Ruby is famous for being easy to learn, but most users only scratch the surface of what it can do. While other books focus on Ruby's trendier features, The Book of Ruby reveals the secret inner workings of one of the world's most popular programming languages, teaching you to write clear, maintainable code.

You'll start with the basics—types, data structures, and control flows—and progress to advanced features like blocks, mixins, metaclasses, and beyond. Rather than bog you down with a lot of theory, The Book of Ruby takes a hands-on approach and focuses on making you productive from day one. As you follow along, you’ll learn to:

Create new fibers and threads to manage independent processes concurrently

Catch and recover from execution errors with robust exception handling

Develop powerful web applications with the Ruby on Rails framework

Each chapter includes a "Digging Deeper" section that shows you how Ruby works under the hood, so you'll never be caught off guard by its deceptively simple scoping, multithreading features, or precedence rules.

Whether you're new to programming or just new Ruby, The Book of Ruby is your guide to rapid, real-world software development with this unique and elegant language.

Author Bio

Huw Collingbourne is the Director of Technology for SapphireSteel Software, developer of the Ruby In Steel IDE. With 30 years of programming experience, he has written programming columns for numerous magazines, presented features on computing for BBC Television, and currently edits the online technical journal Bitwise Magazine. He has previously released two free ebooks on Ruby—The Little Book of Ruby and The Book of Ruby.

"I'm no longer afraid of Ruby or daunted by its syntax. If you're looking for a good introduction to the language The Book of Ruby should be on your buying list."
—Craig Buckler, OptimalWorks Web Design (Read More)

"Collingbourne knows his subject and if you are a software developer wanting to learn more about Ruby there is plenty of valuable material here."
—Tim Anderson, ITWriting (Read More)

"The Book of Ruby is not just technically good or accurate, it is truly well written."
—Ecommerce Developer (Read More)